BillerudKorsnäs today announced the withdrawal of its Swedish project, Pyrogrot, from NER300. Pyrogrot was a BIOa-subcategory project concerning ‘Lignocellulose to intermediate solid, liquid or slurry bioenergy carriers via pyrolysis with capacity of minimum 40 kt/y of the final product’. In mid-2013 the project applied for an extension to its date of entry into operation, a leaked document from the EC shows.

Before the end of the month, projects must submit the first of a series of annual reports, detailing the progress they are making.

The EC will need to decide whether to allow another award to a Swedish project in the second round of NER300, which is currently underway. It has written that it is “highly unlikely” that this will be possible.

The EC will present amendments to the Dec 2012 Award Decision to the Climate Change Committee tomorrow. The Westwave project, awarded 19.8 M EUR, has withdrawn from the first round of NER300.

ESB, the Project Sponsor of Westwave, confirmed the withdrawal, citing difficulty in complying with NER300’s deadlines and, in the period between the submission of the funding application in Feb 2011 and the Award Decision in 2012, slower than foreseen progress in wave energy technology. The company said, “In agreement with the EC and Irish Government, ESB has withdrawn the project from the first round of NER300 and resubmitted it to the second round. This allows the timeline to be extended by 2 years, thus allowing time for [wave] technology to mature.”

The money allocated to it will be available to fund projects in the second round, which are currently being screened for the technical and financial soundness by the EIB. The resubmitted project is therefore competing against the other 32 proposals undergoing this assessment.

The project was one of two Irish contenders in the first round. The resubmitted project is Ireland’s only second-round project.

The EC’s revisions to the Award Decision will be available soon after tomorrow’s Climate Change Committee meeting.